This category needs an editor. We encourage you to help if you are qualified.
Volunteer, or read more about what this involves.

Formal Epistemology

Assistant editor: Mackenzie Marcotte (University of Western Ontario)
Related

Contents
3052 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 3052
Material to categorize
  1. (1 other version)A causal theory of confirmation for Bayesians.Shimin Zhao - 2024 - Syntheses 204 (167).
    This paper proposes a new Bayesian confirmation theory, according to which confirmational relations are causal relations between credences. The idea is that proposition E is evidentially relevant to proposition H relative to a credence distribution cr just in case cr(E) is a cause of cr(H), which is understood from an interventionist perspective as intervening on cr(E) would make a difference to the value of cr(H). E confirms H means that under an intervention on cr(E), cr(H) and cr(E) would covary in (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Awareness Revision and Belief Extension.Joe Roussos - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy:1-24.
    What norm governs how an agent should change their beliefs when they encounter a completely new possibility? Orthodox Bayesianism has no answer, as it takes all learning to involve updating prior beliefs. A partial proposal is Reverse Bayesianism, which mandates the preservation of ratios of prior probabilities, but it faces counterexamples introduced by Mahtani (2021). I propose to separate awareness growth into two stages: awareness revision and belief extension. I argue that Mahtani’s cases highlight that we need to theorize awareness (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. A comparison of imprecise Bayesianism and Dempster–Shafer theory for automated decisions under ambiguity.Mantas Radzvilas, William Peden, Daniele Tortoli & Francesco De Pretis - forthcoming - Journal of Logic and Computation.
    Ambiguity occurs insofar as a reasoner lacks information about the relevant physical probabilities. There are objections to the application of standard Bayesian inductive logic and decision theory in contexts of significant ambiguity. A variety of alternative frameworks for reasoning under ambiguity have been proposed. Two of the most prominent are Imprecise Bayesianism and Dempster–Shafer theory. We compare these inductive logics with respect to the Ambiguity Dilemma, which is a problem that has been raised for Imprecise Bayesianism. We develop an agent-based (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. Natural-Language Multi-Agent Simulations of Argumentative Opinion Dynamics.Gregor Betz - 2022 - JASSS 25 (1).
    This paper develops a natural-language agent-based model of argumentation (ABMA). Its artificial deliberative agents (ADAs) are constructed with the help of so-called neural language models recently developed in AI and computational linguistics. ADAs are equipped with a minimalist belief system and may generate and submit novel contributions to a conversation. The natural-language ABMA allows us to simulate collective deliberation in English, i.e. with arguments, reasons, and claims themselves — rather than with their mathematical representations (as in symbolic models). This paper (...)
    Remove from this list  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. New Possibilities for Fair Algorithms.Michael Nielsen & Rush Stewart - 2024 - Philosophy and Technology 37 (4):1-17.
    We introduce a fairness criterion that we call Spanning. Spanning i) is implied by Calibration, ii) retains interesting properties of Calibration that some other ways of relaxing that criterion do not, and iii) unlike Calibration and other prominent ways of weakening it, is consistent with Equalized Odds outside of trivial cases.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  6. Belief in truthmaker semantics.Mark Jago - 2024 - Synthese 204 (4):1-24.
    Stephen Yablo has argued that ascriptions of belief and knowledge are sensitive to _subject matter_ and that theorising in such terms may help resolve philosophical questions about the semantics of such ascriptions. _Truthmaker semantics_ offers a way of theorising about subject matters. My main aim in this paper is to investigate what a semantics for knowledge or belief ascriptions might look like within truthmaker semantics. I then discuss what the resulting account might have to say about the problem of logical (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. Probabilistically coherent credences despite opacity.Christian List - 2024 - Economics and Philosophy 40 (2):497-506.
    Real human agents, even when they are rational by everyday standards, sometimes assign different credences to objectively equivalent statements, such as ‘Orwell is a writer’ and ‘E.A. Blair is a writer’, or credences less than 1 to necessarily true statements, such as not-yet-proven theorems of arithmetic. Anna Mahtani calls this the phenomenon of ‘opacity’. Opaque credences seem probabilistically incoherent, which goes against a key modelling assumption of probability theory. I sketch a modelling strategy for capturing opaque credence assignments without abandoning (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. It is never rational for anyone to believe they don't know the logical truth.Luis Rosa - forthcoming - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy.
    Let T be any logical truth. Does the subject know that T (any random subject)? It is not rational for any subject to believe that they don’t, whoever they are. Similarly, it is not rational for them to believe that their evidence doesn’t support T, and it is not even rational for them to believe that they don’t believe that T. It is not rational for anyone anywhere at any time to believe that they don’t know that T. Such are (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. Assessing a Formal Model of Reflective Equilibrium.Andreas Freivogel & Sebastian Cacean - 2024
    In philosophy, and especially in ethics, reflective equilibrium (RE) is often considered a powerful method for obtaining beliefs that mutually support each other, are justified by evidence, and are backed by good reasons. Beisbart, Betz, and Brun (2021) have introduced a formal model of reflective equilibrium based on the theory of dialectical structures Betz (2013), which they use as a methodological tool to understand the method of reflective equilibrium better. This report is an outcome of the research project 'How far (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  10. On Algebra Relativisation.Chloé de Canson - forthcoming - Mind.
    Katie Steele and H. Orri Stefánsson argue that, to reflect an agent’s limited awareness, the algebra of propositions on which that agent’s credences are defined should be relativised to their awareness state. I argue that this produces insurmountable difficulties. But the project of relativising the agent’s algebra to reflect their partial perspective need not be abandoned: the algebra can be relativised, not to the agent’s awareness state, but to what we might call their subjective modality.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Exploitative informing.David Thorstad - forthcoming - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    Informing others about the world is often a helpful act. In this paper, I study agents who conduct experiments to gather information about the world, committing in advance to fully disclose the nature of the experiment together with all experimental findings. While this appears to be a benign activity, I characterize a type of exploitative informing that is possible even within this restricted setup. I show how exploitative informants use public experiments to predictably manipulate interlocutors’ beliefs and actions to their (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  12. Truth-Ratios, Evidential Fit, and Deferring to Informants with Low Error Probabilities.Michael Roche & William Roche - forthcoming - Acta Analytica.
    Suppose that an informant (test, expert, device, perceptual system, etc.) is unlikely to err when pronouncing on a particular subject matter. When this is so, it might be tempting to defer to that informant when forming beliefs about that subject matter. How is such an inferential process expected to fare in terms of truth (leading to true beliefs) and evidential fit (leading to beliefs that fit one’s total evidence)? Using a medical diagnostic test as an example, we set out a (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. Explanatory Power and Explanatory Justice.Jonah N. Schupbach & Jan Sprenger - manuscript
    Crupi and Tentori (2012) propose a condition of adequacy for any Bayesian measure of explanatory power, which they call Explanatory Justice. They criticize a measure recently defended by Schupbach and Sprenger(2011) for failing to satisfy this condition, and they offer a new explanatorily just measure of explanatory power. In this paper, we investigate Explanatory Justice’s merits as a condition of adequacy. We offer three arguments against this condition, thus supporitng the idea that a measure of explanatory power should rather be (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  14. A Formal Epistemological Defence of Direct Realism: Rebutting the Colour Delusion Argument.Wilfrid Wulf - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Epistemology.
    I defend J. L. Austin's direct realism against the colour delusion argument by employing epistemic logic to demonstrate that perceiving colours does not necessitate an intermediary such as sense-data, thus preserving the directness of perception.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. Epistemic Circularity: Worry, Illusion, and Determination.Catalin Barboianu - 2014
    Research on epistemic circularity has focused more on the problem of whether circular arguments are able to justify their conclusions rather than on the nature of circularity itself, and has kept a sharp delimitation from other types of circularities (logical, linguistic, and of definition). In this paper, I aim to move the focus toward the general concept of circularity, which I relate to the concept of ‘epistemic worry’. Through a brief overview on the known types of circularities, I show that (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Epistemic Infinite Regress and the Limits of Metaphysical Knowledge.Wilfrid Wulf - forthcoming - Oxford Studies in Epistemology.
    I will explore the paradoxical nature of epistemic access. By critiquing the traditional conception of mental states that are labelled as ’knowledge’, I demonstrate the susceptibility of these states to an infinite regress, thus, challenging their existence and validity. I scrutinise the assumption that an epistemic agent can have complete epistemic access to all facts about a given object while simultaneously being ignorant of certain truths that impact the very knowledge claims about the object. I further analyse the implications of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  17. Conjunctive explanation: Is the explanatory gain worth the cost?David H. Glass & Jonah N. Schupbach - 2023 - In Jonah N. Schupbach & David H. Glass (eds.), Conjunctive Explanations: The Nature, Epistemology, and Psychology of Explanatory Multiplicity. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 144-169.
    This chapter develops and defends a formal epistemology of conjunctive explanation by determining the conditions under which multiple distinct explanations are better than one. The general approach is to identify an appropriate measure of explanatory goodness that can then be applied to conjunctive explanations. If a conjunctive explanation is to be preferred it needs to have greater explanatory virtue (e.g., power or scope) with respect to the evidence, but this explanatory gain is insufficient on its own. Given a conjunctive explanation’s (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  18. Bir Bilme Teorisi. [REVIEW]Musa Yanık - 2021 - Kutadgu Bilig Felsefe-Bilim Araştırmaları Dergisi 43 (1):247-251.
    Mehdiyev’in Bir Bilme Teorisi adını verdiği eser, içerisinde birçok kavram ve problemi barındırması açısından oldukça zengin ve ufuk açıcı bir teoridir. Onun, bilgi söz konusu olduğunda medeniyet, bilim, teoloji ve sanat gibi sosyal epistemoloji içerisindeki kavramlara atıfla karşılaştırmalar yapması ve inanç, kanı gibi kavramlar üzerinden değerlendirmelerde bulunması; mevcut literatür içindeki kavramlara dair gerek olumlu gerekse olumsuz yeni bakış açılarını bize sağlarken, ayrıca mevcut problemleri, hem çağdaş hem de klasik teoriler içinde ele alması, bize ufuk açıcı yorumlar da kazandırmaktadır.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  19. Triangulation, incommensurability, and conditionalization.Ittay Nissan-Rozen & Amir Liron - forthcoming - Philosophy of Science.
    We present a new justification for methodological triangulation (MT), the practice of using different methods to support the same scientific claim. Unlike existing accounts, our account captures cases in which the different methods in question are associated with, and rely on, incommensurable theories. Using a nonstandard Bayesian model, we show that even in such cases, a commitment to the minimal form of epistemic conservatism, captured by the rigidity condition that stands at the basis of Jeffrey’s conditionalization, supports the practice of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. Credence and Belief: Distance- and Utility-based Approaches.Minkyung Wang & Chisu Kim - 2024 - Philosophy of Science.
    This paper investigates the question of how subjective probability should relate to binary belief. We propose new distance minimization methods, and develop epistemic decision-theoretic accounts. Both approaches can be shown to get “close” to the truth: the first one by getting “close” to a given probability, and the second by getting expectedly “close” to the truth. More specifically, we study distance minimization with a refined notion of Bregman divergence and expected utility maximization with strict proper scores. Our main results reveal (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. Natural Theology and Divine Freedom.Philipp Kremers - 2024 - Sophia 63 (1):135-150.
    Many philosophers of theistic religions claim (1) that there are powerful a posteriori arguments for God’s existence that make it rational to believe that He exists and at the same time maintain (2) that God always has the freedom to do otherwise. In this article, I argue that these two positions are inconsistent because the empirical evidence on which the a posteriori arguments for God’s existence rest can be explained better by positing the existence of a God-like being without the (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (6 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  22. Higher-Order Evidence and the Dynamics of Self-Location: An Accuracy-Based Argument for Calibrationism.Brett Topey - 2022 - Erkenntnis 89 (4):1407-1433.
    The thesis that agents should calibrate their beliefs in the face of higher-order evidence—i.e., should adjust their first-order beliefs in response to evidence suggesting that the reasoning underlying those beliefs is faulty—is sometimes thought to be in tension with Bayesian approaches to belief update: in order to obey Bayesian norms, it’s claimed, agents must remain steadfast in the face of higher-order evidence. But I argue that this claim is incorrect. In particular, I motivate a minimal constraint on a reasonable treatment (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  23. Iterated Knowledge.Simon Goldstein - 2024 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    You omega know p when you possess every iteration of knowledge of p. This book argues that omega knowledge plays a central role in philosophy. In particular, the book argues that omega knowledge is necessary for permissible assertion, action, inquiry, and belief. Although omega knowledge plays this important role, existing theories of omega knowledge are unsatisfying. One theory, KK, identifies knowledge with omega knowledge. This theory struggles to accommodate cases of inexact knowledge. The other main theory is skeptical, claiming that (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  24. Deference Principles for Imprecise Credences.Giacomo Molinari - manuscript
    This essay gives an account of epistemic deference for agents with imprecise credences. I look at the two main imprecise deference principles in the literature, known as Identity Reflection and Pointwise Reflection (Moss, 2021). I show that Pointwise Reflection is strictly weaker than Identity Reflection, and argue that, if you are certain you will update by conditionalisation, you should defer to your future self according to Identity Reflection. Then I give a more general justification for Pointwise and Identity Reflection from (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  25. An accuracy characterisation of approximate coherence.Giacomo Molinari - 2024 - Synthese 203 (2):1-25.
    Accuracy-first epistemologists argue that rational agents have probabilistically coherent credences. But why should we care, given that we can’t help being incoherent? A common answer: probabilistic coherence is an ideal to be approximated as best one can. De Bona (in: Philos Sci 84(2), 189–213, 2017) and Staffel (in: Unsettled thoughts: a theory of degrees of rationality, Oxford University Press, 2019) show how accuracy-firsters can spell out this answer by adopting an appropriate notion of approximate coherence. In this essay, I argue (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  26. Rational updating at the crossroads.Silvia Milano & Andrés Perea - 2024 - Economics and Philosophy 40 (1):190-211.
    In this paper we explore the absentminded driver problem using two different scenarios. In the first scenario we assume that the driver is capable of reasoning about his degree of absentmindedness before he hits the highway. This leads to a Savage-style model where the states are mutually exclusive and the act-state independence is in place. In the second we employ centred possibilities, by modelling the states (i.e. the events about which the driver is uncertain) as the possible final destinations indexed (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  27. Belief about Probability.Ray Buchanan & Sinan Dogramaci - forthcoming - Journal of Philosophy.
    Credences are beliefs about evidential probabilities. We give the view an assessment-sensitive formulation, show how it evades the standard objections, and give several arguments in support.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  28. Suspending belief in credal accounts.Andrew del Rio - 2024 - Noûs 58 (1):3-25.
    Traditionally epistemologists have taken doxastic states to come in three varieties—belief, disbelief, and suspension. Recently many epistemologists have taken our doxastic condition to be usefully represented by credences—quantified degrees of belief. Moreover, some have thought that this new credal picture is sufficient to account for everything we want to explain with the old traditional picture. Therefore, belief, disbelief, and suspension must map onto the new picture somehow. In this paper I challenge that possibility. Approaching the question from the angle of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  29. A Qualitative Approach to Conceptual Spaces: Prototypes as Qualitative Atoms.Javier Belastegui - 2022 - Erkenntnis 89:319-354.
    The aim of this paper is to propose a qualitative approach to the theory of conceptual spaces, in contrast to the usual metric framework. This requires qualitative notions of similarity, simple concepts, prototypes and conceptual categorisation. For this purpose, I will introduce three mathematical models for conceptual spaces. The first one is topological and has been proposed by Mormann. The other two are new and are based on atomistic orders and similarity relations. I will discuss how each of them deals (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  30. The Ambiguity Dilemma for Imprecise Bayesians.Mantas Radzvilas, William Peden & Francesco De Pretis - forthcoming - The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science.
    How should we make decisions when we do not know the relevant physical probabilities? In these ambiguous situations, we cannot use our knowledge to determine expected utilities or payoffs. The traditional Bayesian answer is that we should create a probability distribution using some mix of subjective intuition and objective constraints. Imprecise Bayesians argue that this approach is inadequate for modelling ambiguity. Instead, they represent doxastic states using credal sets. Generally, insofar as we are more uncertain about the physical probability of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  31. Underdetermination of Imprecise Probabilities.Joshua Thong - 2022 - Dissertation, Australian National University
    In a fair finite lottery with n tickets, the probability assigned to each ticket winning is 1/n and no other answer. That is, 1/n is unique. Now, consider a fair lottery over the natural numbers. What probability is assigned to each ticket winning in this lottery? Well, this probability value must be smaller than 1/n for all natural numbers n. If probabilities are real-valued, then there is only one answer: 0, as 0 is the only real and non-negative value that (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  32. Primitive conditional probabilities, subset relations and comparative regularity.Joshua Thong - 2023 - Analysis 84 (3):547–555.
    Rational agents seem more confident in any possible event than in an impossible event. But if rational credences are real-valued, then there are some possible events that are assigned 0 credence nonetheless. How do we differentiate these events from impossible events then when we order events? de Finetti (1975), Hájek (2012) and Easwaran (2014) suggest that when ordering events, conditional credences and subset relations are as relevant as unconditional credences. I present a counterexample to all their proposals in this paper. (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (5 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  33. Virtuously Circular. Theoretical Virtues in Reflective Equilibrium.Andreas Freivogel - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Bern
  34. On Believing and Being Convinced.Paul Silva Jr - forthcoming - Cambridge University Press.
    Our doxastic states are our belief-like states, and these include outright doxastic states and degreed doxastic states. The former include believing that p, having the opinion that p, thinking that p, being sure that p, being certain that p, and doubting that p. The latter include degrees of confidence, credences, and perhaps some phenomenal states. But we also have conviction (being convinced simpliciter that p) and degrees of conviction (being more or less convinced that p). This volume shows: how and (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  35. Landscapes and Bandits: A Unified Model of Functional and Demographic Diversity.Alice C. W. Huang - forthcoming - Philosophy of Science.
    Two types of formal models - landscape search tasks and two-armed bandit models - are often used to study the effects that various social factors have on epistemic performance. I argue that they can be understood within a single framework. In this unified framework, I develop a model that may be used to understand the effects of functional and demographic diversity and their interaction. Using the unified model, I find that the benefit of demographic diversity is most pronounced in a (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  36. Prefaces, Knowledge, and Questions.Frank Hong - 2023 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 10.
    The Preface Paradox is often discussed for its implications for rational belief. Much less discussed is a variant of the Preface Paradox for knowledge. In this paper, I argue that the most plausible closure-friendly resolution to the Preface Paradox for Knowledge is to say that in any given context, we do not know much. I call this view “Socraticism”. I argue that Socraticism is the most plausible view on two accounts—(1) this view is compatible with the claim that most of (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  37. The Experimental Philosophy of Logic and Formal Epistemology: Conditionals.Igor Douven, Shira Elqayam & Karolina Krzyżanowska - 2023 - In Alexander Max Bauer & Stephan Kornmesser (eds.), The Compact Compendium of Experimental Philosophy. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 211-236.
  38. Making decisions with evidential probability and objective Bayesian calibration inductive logics.Mantas Radzvilas, William Peden & Francesco De Pretis - forthcoming - International Journal of Approximate Reasoning:1-37.
    Calibration inductive logics are based on accepting estimates of relative frequencies, which are used to generate imprecise probabilities. In turn, these imprecise probabilities are intended to guide beliefs and decisions — a process called “calibration”. Two prominent examples are Henry E. Kyburg's system of Evidential Probability and Jon Williamson's version of Objective Bayesianism. There are many unexplored questions about these logics. How well do they perform in the short-run? Under what circumstances do they do better or worse? What is their (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  39. Learning from experience and conditionalization.Peter Brössel - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (9):2797-2823.
    Bayesianism can be characterized as the following twofold position: (i) rational credences obey the probability calculus; (ii) rational learning, i.e., the updating of credences, is regulated by some form of conditionalization. While the formal aspect of various forms of conditionalization has been explored in detail, the philosophical application to learning from experience is still deeply problematic. Some philosophers have proposed to revise the epistemology of perception; others have provided new formal accounts of conditionalization that are more in line with how (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  40. Credal imprecision and the value of evidence.Nilanjan Das - 2023 - Noûs 57 (3):684-721.
    This paper is about a tension between two theses. The first is Value of Evidence: roughly, the thesis that it is always rational for an agent to gather and use cost‐free evidence for making decisions. The second is Rationality of Imprecision: the thesis that an agent can be rationally required to adopt doxastic states that are imprecise, i.e., not representable by a single credence function. While others have noticed this tension, I offer a new diagnosis of it. I show that (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  41. Modelling Belief Dynamics.Manuel Bremer - manuscript
    The following considerations concern modelling Belief Dynamics (BD) not just in the sense of a formalization, but rather in the sense of building a computational model and implementing the corresponding data structures and algorithms of recomputing beliefs. The purpose of such a project is to illustrate some ideas about belief changes in a Web of Beliefs (WoB) to explore and deepen one's understanding of belief changes by trying to implement or improve corresponding algorithms.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  42. Reasoning Simplifying Attitudes.Michele Palmira - 2023 - Episteme 20 (3):722-735.
    Several philosophers maintain that outright belief exists because it plays a reasoning simplifying role (Holton 2008; Ross and Schroeder 2014; Staffel 2019; Weisberg 2020). This claim has been recently contested, on the grounds that credences also can simplify reasoning (Dinges 2021). This paper takes a step back and asks: what features of an attitude explain its alleged ability to simplify reasoning? The paper contrasts two explanations, one in terms of dispositions and the other in terms of representation, arguing in favour (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (3 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  43. Absence of evidence against belief as credence 1.Andrew del Rio - 2022 - Analysis 83 (1):31-39.
    On one view of the traditional doxastic attitudes, belief is credence 1, disbelief is credence 0 and suspension is any precise credence between 0 and 1. In ‘Rational agnosticism and degrees of belief’ (2013) Jane Friedman argues, against this view, that there are cases where a credence of 0 is required but where suspension is permitted. If this were so, belief, disbelief and suspension could not be identified or reduced to the aforementioned credences. I argue that Friedman relies on two (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (4 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  44. A Note on Logical Paradoxes and Aristotelian Square of Opposition.Beppe Brivec - manuscript
    According to Aristotle if a universal proposition (for example: “All men are white”) is true, its contrary proposition (“All men are not white”) must be false; and, according to Aristotle, if a universal proposition (for example: “All men are white”) is true, its contradictory proposition (“Not all men are white”) must be false. I agree with what Aristotle wrote about universal propositions, but there are universal propositions which have no contrary proposition and have no contradictory proposition. The proposition X “All (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  45. The Myside Bias in Argument Evaluation: A Bayesian Model.Edoardo Baccini & Stephan Hartmann - 2022 - Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 44:1512-1518.
    The "myside bias'' in evaluating arguments is an empirically well-confirmed phenomenon that consists of overweighting arguments that endorse one's beliefs or attack alternative beliefs while underweighting arguments that attack one's beliefs or defend alternative beliefs. This paper makes two contributions: First, it proposes a probabilistic model that adequately captures three salient features of myside bias in argument evaluation. Second, it provides a Bayesian justification of this model, thus showing that myside bias has a rational Bayesian explanation under certain conditions.
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  46. Conjunctive Explanations: A Coherentist Appraisal.Stephan Hartmann & Borut Trpin - 2023 - In Jonah N. Schupbach & David H. Glass (eds.), Conjunctive Explanations: The Nature, Epistemology, and Psychology of Explanatory Multiplicity. New York, NY: Routledge. pp. 111-134.
    A conjunction of two hypotheses may provide a better explanation than either one of them individually, even if each already provides a good explanation on its own. An appropriate measure of explanatory power should reflect this, but none of the measures discussed in the literature do so because they only consider how much an explanatory hypothesis reduces our surprise at the evidence – which is problematic. This chapter introduces and defends a class of coherentist measures of explanatory power, and shows (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  47. Confirmation, Coherence and the Strength of Arguments.Stephan Hartmann & Borut Trpin - 2023 - Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 45:1473-1479.
    Alongside science and law, argumentation is also of central importance in everyday life. But what characterizes a good argument? This question has occupied philosophers and psychologists for centuries. The theory of Bayesian argumentation is particularly suitable for clarifying it, because it allows us to take into account in a natural way the role of uncertainty, which is central to much argumentation. Moreover, it offers the possibility of measuring the strength of an argument in probabilistic terms. One way to do this, (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  48. Coherence of Information: What It Is and Why It Matters.Stephan Hartmann & Borut Trpin - 2023 - Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society 45:3617-3623.
    Coherence considerations play an important role in science and in everyday reasoning. However, it is unclear what exactly is meant by coherence of information and why we prefer more coherent information over less coherent information. To answer these questions, we first explore how to explicate the dazzling notion of ``coherence'' and how to measure the coherence of an information set. To do so, we critique prima facie plausible proposals that incorporate normative principles such as ``Agreement'' or ``Dependence'' and then argue (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download (2 more)  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  49. Editors with multiple retractions, but who serve on journal editorial boards: Case studies.Jaime A. Teixeira da Silva & Quan-Hoang Vuong - 2023 - Epistēmēs Metron Logos 9:1-8.
    In a recent opinion paper, it was argued that individuals with multiple retractions or a record of academic misconduct should not serve as editors, including as editors-in-chief, on the editorial boards of scholarly or academic journals. As a first step towards appreciating how such a policy could be applied in practice, the presence of 30 individuals listed on the Retraction Watch Leaderboard on editorial boards was screened. Six cases are highlighted to gain an appreciation of the potential reputational risks that (...)
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  50. Sociology.Lee Yunho - 2023 - Eml.
    Traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, sexuality, gender, and deviance. Recent studies have added socio-technical aspects of the digital divide as a new focus.
    Remove from this list   Direct download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
1 — 50 / 3052